


Soulmates

by asarahworld



Series: The Doctor and Rose Tyler [25]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Ficandchips, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tumblr: doctorroseprompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 21:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12155193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asarahworld/pseuds/asarahworld





	Soulmates

Having a compass soul mark made no sense at all, thought the Doctor, flicking a knob on the TARDIS’ console. It was as useful for finding his soulmate as a couple of tin cans connected with string. Most of the time, it spun, constantly changing directions as it searched for the person he was supposedly destined to spend his life with. Most Gallifreyans ignored their soul marks, content to spend their lives in a pre-arranged political union. Susan had found David purely by chance, in the aftermath of a Dalek warzone. The Doctor’s soul mark always pointed toward the Earth, and so he spent much of his time on the tiny planet.

Rose Tyler’s soul mark was, as her best friend Shireen put it, “complicated at best, completely batshit at worst.” When it had first appeared, they had thought it had been a sort of logogram – written in a Chinese or Korean variant. Not only had it not been any language like these – Rose’s marks were made of circles – but they had been unable to find anyone with similar marks. The marks were often a source of frustration to Rose, who spent hours trying to decipher the strange marks.

The moment he grabbed the young human girl’s hand in a London shop basement, the Doctor’s compass pointed firmly to his right. He brushed it off as coincidence that the girl happened to have grabbed his right hand as they fled the Autons. He didn’t, he couldn’t have a soulmate. No one who had done the things he had could ever have someone tied to them, especially someone so young and innocent.

The moment before a strange man took her hand, pulling her behind him out of Henrick’s before it exploded, Rose felt her strange soul mark burn. He told her to run, and she did, instinctively trusting him. When she saw the symbols on the monitor in the console room of the TARDIS, she realized that her soul marks were his language. But he never showed any indication of being her soulmate, and so Rose was content to leave the mark be.

Rose Tyler was his soulmate. Even after he regenerated, her hand continued to fit perfectly in his; she was always his true North. He felt himself falling in love with her, and it was growing harder to hide it. Even in this younger, prettier body, the Doctor was still too old and cowardly to confront Rose about her own soul marks.

When a man wearing his face, with his memories, feeling his emotions kissed her, the double-hearted Doctor felt them both break. Rose Tyler was his soulmate, and he would spend the rest of his life with her. It just happened that he wasn’t himself.

When a man with one heart kissed her, he felt his singular heart swell with joy. Rose Tyler was his soulmate, and he now had the one life to match hers.


End file.
